I agree with not, but I expect Common Cause will continue in their delusion, so I propose a way of getting money out of congressional politics so openly radical as to take their breath away.

Part 1: Repeal the 17th amendment, that's the one that made Senators elected instead of appointed by their state legislature.

Part 2: Pass a new amendment, selecting the members of the House by lot from the voter rolls. Because the rolls aren't particulary well maintained, we'd need to select more than one name (say, five) for each position, and go down the list until you got someone who met the requirements; i.e., still alive, still a resident, U.S. citizanship, non-felon, etc. The British House of Lords proves you get decent results with random selection.

No more congessional campaigns, therefor no more 'corrupting' campaign contributions. And, arguably, a more represenative Congress.

A number of years ago, The American Spectator ran an article which made the point that Americans spend six times more per year on potato chips as they do on politics.

The problem, is not that there's too much money in politics, but rather that there's too little. The 'reform' laws only serve to further insulate the policy-makers and politicians from the public, and as a result, more and more of the public choose not to vote (but, of course, they cannot choose to not pay the taxes that support the policy-makers). The reform acts only serve to further inhibit people from politics.

The answer, as this article suggests, is to make political donations fully unlimited, and completely transparent.

Oh, and it wouldn't hurt if we all cut back on the potato chips either.

Reform should be as follows, only people in your district should be able to donate, and make it transparent.

Azlibertarian said: "The answer, as this article suggests, is to make political donations fully unlimited, and completely transparent."

This answer is based on the theory full transparency will expose the rich donor and the candidate who accepted it, acting as the deterrent for both, hence self-regulating campaign financing.

This answer has been around for years, and like most "self-regulation" answers, it hasn't worked.

The contribution laws on the books could work if they were enforced. They are not. When is the last time you heard of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) Gov't Enforcement Agency doing anything about the blatant finger in your eye breaking of finance laws from both sides.

RE: "A Delegate, a Fund-Raiser, and a Very Fine Line" NY Times 7/29.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/29/politics/campaign/
29donate.html?th

Steven Taylor's "lassi faire" approach to campaign finance reform suffers from the same problem this theory had in trying to address the "monopoly" problem in capitalism, that is, government intervention is not required to balance the power between the big and the small in order to maintain fair competition in the marketplace.

As long as the FEC fails to do its job(lord knows they're not the only gov't agency), you will have a monopoly of power by the few who can afford to pay "both parties" for it.

This answer has been around for years, and like most "self-regulation" answers, it hasn't worked.

Where has it been tried? You do realize, don't you, that the transparency aspect involves complete and instantaneous posting of information about each contribution on the Intenet? Your dismissal of the idea seems to suggest that this has been going on for years already and failed.

You're going to have to support that assertion with more than a webpage from nytimes.com

Best way to reduce the amount of money spent on politics: Reduce the size and regulatory authority of government.

What Jason said. 'taint rocket science: if you want money out of politics, get politics out of money.

Unfortunately guys, it does take science to get the pee out of the water.